Summer fun!

It's nearly summer and we are really getting things rolling now!  Kidding season is officially done....our last kids were born on the 11th; with a buck and doe...Happy's grandbabies.  We wethered the buckling and found him a great home..the girl will be staying with us.  It's hard to tell in pictures, but she is covered with spots.  Queenacres Famous Finale....but we call her Famey Amy....

Legacy is feeling much better....and has resumed her daily sunning position...

Speaking of goats....check out these father/son pictures of Pete and Frodo! Here's Pete...

And here's Frodo....

Notice the family resemblance?  LOL

I am very happy to report that our lemon grass is not dead!  I thought it was a gonner for sure...but there are some new sprigs coming up!

After not having rabbits for a few years we decided to take the plunge again.  We're starting with a buck and 3 does (4 are in the picture but we're just holding it for a friend).  The plan is to build them a pen to colonize, the does will have free run of the pen and the buck will be housed in a large hutch.  These come from very large stock so we're hoping for plenty of meat by next year at this time....

The biggest news here is in the poultry pens!  Our turkeys are laying again and our incubator is now full of turkey eggs!  We've got poultry everywhere!  Our replacement layers are a few weeks old now and getting some size...

Our meat chicks are nearly ready to move out to the meat pen....

And for the first time in a couple of years I placed a poultry order!  I buy our poultry from Ideal Hatchery and have never been disappointed!  Since we lost our foundation meat roo this spring, I decided to order 6 dark cornish chicks to add to the bloodline.  I'm anxious to see what these do with our colors.  By the way, I ordered 6 and Ideal sent me 7.  I LOVE the folks that work there!

Next on the list was 25 of their bantam special.  These are straight run bantams of all different breed.  I like to have a few bantams running around the yard for insect control...they aren't as hard on the garden as standard birds are.  Plus mom wanted a few in her yard for entertainment.  By the way, they sent 31.

Next on the list was the Suprise Special standard breeds.  These were on sale at $1 each for straight run...how could I resist THAT?  I ordered 50 of these.  There should be plenty of roos for butchering and a few hens that will add a splash of color to the laying pen....

And the last item in the box was a half dozen Indian Runner ducks.  I have wanted a duck or two to help with bugs around the turkey pen, and I have a dear friend that LOVES Indian Runners.  Since her birthday is coming up, I plan to keep 2 and she's getting the other 4 as a birthday present.  That is if I can keep them alive for the next couple of weeks!  Within an hour of putting them in the brooder cage, they started squeezing through the bars and getting out.  One of the little houdinis dropped to the ground, ran across the yard and I found him in the pig pen.  Luckily the little guys are imprinted so he came right to me when I walked out....it could have been ugly if the pig had been awake.  He's now walking with a limp and I moved them all to the bantam brooder until they get fat enough to stay in their cage.

This was a very successful order, not a DOA in the box!

Nature....Wow!

Last week Bob found a rat snake behind his workshop.  That's not unusual, especially since his workshop is between the chicken coop and my milkroom.  When we find the snakes here we relocate them since rat snakes will eat eggs and baby chicks.  In this case, Bob took the snake across the road to our son Ben....to let him find a place to release it.

I could not believe that Ben actually got Kelli to hold the snake! 

But that wasn't the amazing thing.  What was so amazing is that the next morning, Bob noticed a snakeskin in a tree outside our back door.  By the looks of it, the snake had shed, then started to look for a meal....which is when Bob found it behind his shop.

Now for the amazing part.  I'll give you some perspective on where this freshly shed skin is.....

Keep looking....

Of course I knew that rat snakes could climb trees...after all eggs are one of their favorite foods...

But never could I have imagined that they could climb so high....

Wow!

Oh Happy Day!

I am very pleased to report that Happy is doing much better!  She has been living in the kid pen with the babies so that she doesn't have to compete for food and so that she gets all the naps she needs.  We recently brought Legacy back home....also in need of some intensive TLC and snacks....so they have been sharing the pen with the kids and keeping each other company.  I will admit, the road to recovery for these girls has been rather unconventional...and I wouldn't suggest this method to anyone....but I was at my wits' end with 2 elderly does that stopped eating and lost their drive to survive.  I started giving them snacks throughout the day.  When I mean snacks, I mean I would give them whatever they wanted to eat.  Gummy worms, fig newtons, sliced fruit, dried fruit, cookies, crackers, churros, bread, cocoa puffs, frosted mini wheat cereal, tortillas.....and fixing them a milkshake every day.  Poor goat nutrition indeed, but it beats them starving to death while laying next to a pile of alfalfa hay and a bowl of grain!  Giving them a junk food snack every hour or two led them to start eating their grain and hay.  Their attitudes have improved by about 200% and their appetite is good.  Yesterday they even mingled with the herd all afternoon. 

Happy also became a grandma this week.  Ellie Mae gave birth to a beautiful set of twins....Fame and Fortune!  Fame is the doe and we will be keeping her.  She is a moonspotted red roan and is the spitting image of her sire, Pete.  Fortune is the buck....he is beautiful red with black stockings but unfortunately the market is just full of bucklings this year and we can not keep another buck.  We plan to wether him and let him go as a pet.  Any takers?

And maybe our turkeys are not done for the year after all!  2 of our hens went off into the woods to nest.  One hen lost all of her babies throughout the course of a week....the other hen was doing well with her 2 poults.  Now both hens are mothering the 2 babies!  They have really been keeping their distance so it's been tough to get pictures....but yesterday they brought the babies right up to the patio!

The babies are so camouflaged you have to really look close to see one of them between the 2 hens.